Two new villages eager for change

February 23, 2018

By Alatoo Community Development

A previous community training.

Thanks to the Lord we are planning and working out the short-term programs for our project “Healthy Family Living” (HFL) for 2018. This year we will conduct “HFL” projects in two villages that are about 35 minutes from us. The population in each of the villages is about 1,500 people.

Before going into villages we always seek permission to conduct HFL projects from the local administrations, the district police and the family medicine center. Thanks to God, the heads of these administrations had heard about our work and they are happy to cooperate with us. The local leaders will have an opportunity to take part in developing the rural areas. This project will be a great motivation for them. These positive responses make us strong and we are very thankful to the Lord for His support and love.

Last November, our Alatoo team met with 21 villagers in one of these two villages. An old man is head of this village. He is very active and organized the meeting well. They are interested in the projects to improve the infrastructure of their village. We explained the difference between “help” and “development” and also presented the aim and activities of the Healthy Family Living project. They listened actively and wanted to take part in the project and learn the community development (CD) program. We invited 15 of their leaders to a seminar to learn more about CD.

Then last month, we met with 20 people in the other village. They too chose 15 leaders to attend our CD seminar. At the end, we had a very good tea time. We really felt answer to your prayers.

Our first CD seminar was on January 23 with 19 participants from the two villages. Unfortunately, only five people from one village came. The topics of the seminar were What is the community? Differences in help and development, Community Development principles, Behavior change, Healthy relationships and Healthy Nutrition.

When we worked in two communities last year, we found that there was not enough time to identify and analyze their problems and choose one problem to write a project proposal for. That’s why we decided to give CD materials at the beginning of the seminar this year. It will give more time for leaders to work out two or more seed projects using gained knowledge during the CD training.

This first training went well. The new community leaders were able to see their responsibility, why they were chosen as a leader by the communities, and understand the difference between “help” and “development”.

Participants admitted some wrong behavior they had gotten used to in their culture and traditions. They were eager to get new knowledge of community development. We need to pray for their hearts to change their behavior.

Please pray for these two villages where we will be implementing our project in this year. Pray for leaders’ hearts to desire to change their living conditions and lives, and accept His love and light.